


Too Hot To Handle

by mongoose_bite



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, James Bond AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:30:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4645713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mongoose_bite/pseuds/mongoose_bite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean has recently joined MI6's elite agents as 003 and he couldn't be happier. His career is going places, his degree is paid for, his job is exciting, if somewhat dangerous, and his handler is the beautiful Mikasa, whom he will definitely certainly ask out soon.</p><p>Until it isn’t. Until Mikasa is replaced by Eren, who Jean quickly decides is absolutely the last person he wants talking in his ear when he’s getting shot at.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Hot To Handle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shulkie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shulkie/gifts).



Jean Kirschtein loved Mondays. His alarm had him bouncing out of bed, listening to the BBC news with half an ear while he made tea and toast in his shiny kitchen. He showered and grinned at himself in the mirror as he styled his hair and slid into one of his suits. He didn’t bother with a tie; he didn’t want anyone to think he was some fucking intern or something.

He had a job, thank you. A wonderful, amazing job.

He took the lift down to the basement carpark, and drove his sleek silver Porsche to work with a smile on his face. He didn’t even care about the traffic; he enjoyed taking his time, knowing that no one else on the road could be looking forward to the day as much as he did.

He arrived at the SIS building, a veritable concrete palace overlooking the Thames in Vauxhall. Jean thought it was beautiful.

Jean flashed his card and was let into the private carpark beneath. He checked his hair in the mirror and strode briskly to the lift, his shoes tapping purposefully on the concrete. Now he was actually here his thoughts were occupied by one thing; how he could strike up a conversation with his handler today.

He couldn’t believe how lucky he’d been to score Mikasa. She’d transferred from Foreign Office around the same time he’d been given his double-oh designation, and not only was she incredibly efficient, but she was absolutely gorgeous. Jean had seen an awful lot of movies and TV shows; he knew how this went. Sooner or later his roguish charm and devil-may-care attitude would thaw her icy exterior and the sex would be mindblowing.

But that was getting ahead of himself. He pushed the button for his floor and considered how to greet her. He’d complimented her hair last week, and complimenting her outfit might seem disingenuous since she wore very similar clothes most of the time. They all looked fabulous on her but it would be odd to mention it.

He stepped out of the lift and was obliged to show his card again to be let into the secure area. It was a formality; his face had been scanned the moment he arrived, but MI6, for all its love of technology was also an oddly traditional organisation, and the doorman’s job was probably some sort of perk bestowed by the Queen.

Or more likely, M.

He was ushered through with a polite good morning, and he went to the break room first, to get himself some coffee.

“Good morning, Miss Ral.”

“Good morning, Jean.” Petra smiled at him, M’s coffee in one hand and one of the locked document holders in the other. Jean stepped aside to let her pass and glanced at the way her hips swayed in her fitted suit as she strode away.

This place was amazing.

While he made coffee he considered the problem of Mikasa. Maybe he should ask her about her weekend. It was a nice neutral topic that opened them up for discussing all sorts of things outside of work, but the downside was she might ask him how _his_ weekend had been, and Sunday brunch with Mum and Netflix wouldn’t exactly fit the image he was trying to get across. And he couldn’t lie to her either; she’d heard him lie professionally too much to be fooled.

Coffee in hand he started for their shared office, pausing outside Q’s glass-walled laboratory and peering in like he always did at the white-coated techs going about their business.

He saw 007 talking with Q, holding his teacup in that oddly fussy way of his while Q waved their arms excitedly as they explained something. 007 always got to play with the toys first, and given Q’s gadgets didn’t always work as intended Jean was rather glad of it.

Jean caught Levi’s eye and he nodded politely before continuing on his way.

The weather? No.

Maybe he should ask her out for lunch. As colleagues, of course, although she often packed her own lunch and it always looked amazing. Maybe, maybe once they were together, she’d make _him_ lunch. Wouldn’t the office gossip mill like that?

He rounded the partition that separated their space from everyone else’s.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully, his most charming smile in place. Maybe one day she’d ask him why he was so energetic in the morning.

“Hey.”

This wasn’t Mikasa. This wasn’t anything like Mikasa. Jean was completely sure he’d got the right office, and he looked the newcomer over, his smile dropping from his face. The man was about his own age, wearing an ID card prominently displayed around his neck. He was wearing trainers that clashed with his trousers and shirt, which was untucked in a rather untidy manner. He was wearing a knitted beanie that flopped down over his ears, even though it was in no way cold in here.

There was a fucking hipster in his office.

Jean’s gaze swept the desk. Mikasa’s postcards had been taken down, and the neat row of pens had been gathered up and put in a mug with the Ubuntu symbol on it. There was an unfamiliar potted plant on the corner of the desk.

“I’m sorry, have they rearranged the office over the weekend?” Jean asked.

“I dunno, mate, I’m waiting for double-oh three.”

“I’m double-oh three,” Jean said frostily.

“Oh, well you’re in the right office then.” Jean scowled; he knew he was in the right office. It wasn’t _his_ location that was in question. “I’m Eren. I’m going to be your handler from now on.” He offered him a smile which Jean ignored.

“No, that can’t be right,” Jean said. Eren raised his eyebrows. Jean tried to explain, “Mikasa is my handler. We have an excellent relationship and our performance-”

Eren shrugged and spun around in his chair to continue customising his desktop, cutting him off. “Take it up with M if you don’t like it,” he said, sounding rather annoyed.

Jean was most certainly not going to take it up with M. He wasn’t that stupid. He flung himself down into his chair and scowled. This sucked.

“Who pissed in your wheaties this morning anyway?” Eren asked, tapping away at his keyboard.

“You did,” Jean said. “Mikasa and I were a team. You can’t just split up a team.”

Eren looked at him intently for a couple of seconds. He had big green eyes and they were slightly unnerving although Jean didn’t let on. Then he laughed, flashing gleaming white teeth.

“Oh man. I know your problem. She’s outta your league. Best you face that now rather than later,” he said with a sympathetic look.

“How the fuck would you know?” Jean sneered, by now entirely sure he could _not_ work with this man.

“Dude, we were at uni together. You have no hope, trust me.” He went back to his computer.

Just great. Mikasa was friends with this dipshit, which means all he had to do was badmouth Jean and his chances would be shot. Jean sipped angrily at his coffee and didn’t deign to reply.

They didn’t talk much after that. Jean learned that Mikasa was now 006’s handler; apparently her background in diplomatic relations made her a better fit with him, according to the grapevine, which Jean had had to shake pretty hard to get this information.

He saw Mikasa at lunch time. She dropped by to see _Eren_ of all people, and they went off to have lunch together. Jean was gracious through his teeth. When Eren had gone, he pulled up his file; just who had M saddled him with?

Jean couldn’t actually find much to complain about. He knew it would be flagged if he looked into the secret database so he contented himself with Eren’s public record. Degree in computer science, spoke Turkish and German, had worked as an insurance investigator for a large international firm for two years, which is presumably when MI6 tapped him on the shoulder.

Jean shifted his jaw and then logged off and went out for lunch. Alone.

~~~

“She is _really_ good,” Armin said.

“I know!” Jean sagged in his seat and took another pull at his pint. He had thought 006 was a bit of a pushover at first, but he’d quickly learned that Armin was anything but. He only _looked_ harmless. Once they’d got the measure of each other, they’d become friends; Jean had to admit Armin was probably the better agent, but when they weren’t working he reverted to type, and relied on Jean to get him out to socialise. “I’m happy for you, but I am not happy for myself.”

“Well, what about your new handler? Eren.”

“He’s a prick. He enjoys winding me up. I am not looking forward to going into the field with him in my ear.”

Armin looked at him over his drink. “You could try and be a little less easy to wind up, you know. If they can’t get a rise out of you, people just give up eventually.”

“For you maybe, that’s because you’re superhumanly calm. Besides, it’s too late. We already don’t get on. Hopefully M will notice soon enough and transfer him away. Somewhere far away, like Mars.”

“I’m sure he’s not that bad,” Armin murmured, but changed the subject.

Armin didn’t know the half of it. The worst of it was that Jean sensed Eren had dismissed him somehow, as an agent or as a person and it drove him mad. He simply wasn’t impressed by Jean (okay, Mikasa hadn’t been either, he could accept that now) and it was like he was laughing at him somewhere behind his eyes.

Well, he hadn’t seen him in the field yet.

Armin was on a honeypot mission. He could look forward to a night seducing Russian heiresses and very expensive drinks while Mikasa talked into his ear. Jean had no idea where Levi was going; he never did. Occasionally Levi would watch the news in the break room and nod with satisfaction, but he never shared the details of his missions, even with people sharing the same clearance level. He'd left the country two hours ago, Q still fussing with his equipment until the very last minute.

And Jean was pushing a mop.

“Elementary infiltration tactics,” Eren had said as they'd gone over the brief together. “No one notices the cleaning staff. You'll be in and out in one night and they won't even realise their data is gone.”

“There's a reception tomorrow night held on the top floor,” Jean pointed out.

“Yeah, and security's going to be doubled.”

Truth was, the mission was for tonight not tomorrow, and Jean just had to suck it up. He guessed Eren probably found watching him mop tiles and wipe down handrails almost as boring as he found actually doing it as he worked his way around to the appropriate office, making note of the security systems as he passed.

“Lot of cameras,” Jean said.

“It's okay, I'll route the feed from a different floor up through yours. They don't have cameras in the bathrooms so it'll look like you're cleaning there. That'll only buy you fifteen minutes though.”

That would be plenty.

It was also the best part of an hour before he had to worry about it. Jean straightened up and stared at the silent corridor ahead of him, and sighed deeply.

There was a soft crunch in his ear. And then again.

“Are you eating crisps?” Jean muttered, as he kicked his mop bucket along.

“Maybe,” Eren replied, his mouth sounding suspiciously full.

“Stop it! That's incredibly annoying.”

“I'll eat quietly then,” Eren said, and Jean flinched as he was forced to listen to Eren slowly biting down on a crisp.

“Stop it.” Now _he_ wanted crisps. He'd seen a vending machine on the floor below, but he guessed it would be bad if he was caught snacking on the job. “Fold the fucking mike away,” he snarled, shuddering as he heard Eren licking his fingers. “That's disgusting.”

He sped up. He wanted this fucking mission to be over already so he could go home and scrub his ears out.

“You missed a spot,” Eren said, many crunches later, proving he was actually paying attention to the feed regardless.

“I don't give a fuck,” Jean said, wiping down a glass panel with swift, vicious strokes. “They should have given this mission to double-oh seven,” he muttered. “He _loves_ cleaning shit.”

“Oh God yes,” Eren said, in a voice that made Jean's eyes widen in shock and his stomach clench in annoyance at the same time. “I would kill to be his handler.”

“That's nice,” Jean said through his teeth.

“Of course, Oulo would kill rather than let anyone else handle him. When I was being trained I got to sit in on one of his missions though. He's so fast, and so smooth.”

If he doesn't shut up, Jean thought, I'm going to 'accidentally' drop my earpiece in the cleaning fluid.

“Yeah well, we can't all work with whoever we want,” Jean said.

Eren heaved a sigh, but at least he was quiet.

Until everything went wrong. Jean got into the office without incident and was dumping files onto the USB when Eren spoke urgently into his ear.

“We've been rumbled. Get out.”

“What?”

“One of your fellow cleaners doubled back onto the floor I was using to cover your feed. He showed up twice for like fifteen seconds and security's heading up. Go.”

“I'm still copying.”

“We'll make do with what we've got.”

“No.”

Jean moved silently across the office and waited, his back to the wall next to the door.

“Double-oh three-”

“Just shut up and let me do my fucking job.”

“This is supposed to be covert-”

“It's too fucking late for that, thanks to you.” The security guards approached the door, and Jean knew the power light on the computer was enough of a give away in the otherwise totally dark room. He didn't wait for them to spot it.

As soon as they were in range he stepped out, foot to the knee of one guard, edge of his hand to the throat of the other. Fast and quiet, he had them sprawling on the ground groaning in about ten seconds.

“Jamming the radio is going to put them on high alert,” Eren was saying. “I'm still looping the feed but they already know it's glitched. Move! I've unlocked the fire doors.”

Jean ignored him. The files had copied and he yanked out the USB and hit the power button before making his exit. Towards the lifts.

“I said, take the fire exit!”

Jean kept ignoring him, and damn it felt good. He grabbed his mop and bucket as he went, and then stepped into the lift. He exited into the lobby, pushing his bucket while Eren swore into his ear.

In the end he couldn't talk his way out. It took some creative use of the mop and bucket style of martial arts, which he invented on the spot thank you very much, and a sprint into the dark that gave him a stitch followed by a quick wardrobe change in an alleyway before he was confident he'd shaken his pursuers.

The debriefing was not pleasant.

M was not happy. He didn't offer either of them a chair when they reported to his office the next morning. He steepled his fingers and waited for an explanation instead.

Eren fired the opening salvo.

“I instructed him to use the fire escape and he ignored me. This was after he ignored me when I told him he had to leave _before_ the security showed up. This was supposed to be a covert operation-”

Oh right, blame it all on _me_. “Our cover was blown the moment they noticed the feed was off. If I'd left without waiting for the files to download then the entire mission would have been a failure. I was sent in to get the data and I got it and no one got hurt.”

“Except for those two guys you minced,” Eren said.

“I did not mince them. I incapacitated them. I do know how to put someone down without killing them.”

“You put a mop handle through someone's eye!”

“It's not fatal.”

“Enough,” M said. “Double-oh three gets to make the calls in the field. Your job, Eren, is to support him. On the other hand, if your handler offers you an escape route I suggest you take it next time. Eren has more information than you do. Trust him.”

Like hell, Jean thought.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

M glanced at Eren.

“Yes, sir.”

They were dismissed and they stalked out. Jean avoided Miss Ral's eye as he went out. He'd never been chewed out like this before. He was an excellent agent. It was all Eren's fault.

When they got back to their office they glared at each other for fifteen seconds and then silently got started on the paperwork.

~~~

They managed not to cock things up too badly after that. Somehow. Jean was starting to dread Mondays. It wasn't that Eren was bad at his job; if he was he could have made a complaint about him and been done with it, but Eren was smart and efficient even if he wasn't as flawless as Mikasa was. Sometimes he pounded at the keyboard so hard Jean could hear him, rerouting live feeds and unlocking doors and keeping one eye on google maps and an ear on the radio-waves for relevant chatter.

They worked together, but only just.

“You realise you haven't talked about anything other than Eren all night,” Armin pointed out one evening, as they tried out a different overpriced bar with a view of the river, and people watched.

“He's just so annoying.”

“You mentioned that. Several times.” Armin stirred his drink, and pretended not to notice the leggy brunette eyeing him off from the other end of the bar. “Although Mikasa says he won't shut up about you, either.”

Jean turned away from the view and looked at Armin. “Really?”

Armin looked at him from under his bangs. “You really probably don't want to know what he's saying.”

“Yes I do.”

Armin sighed, “You asked for it. Apparently you're annoying. More to the point you go off half-cocked, leaving him to scramble around trying to back you up, you're arrogant, you're not as hot as you think you are and your hair is ridiculous.”

Jean gaped.

“What does he mean, half-cocked? I'm the one always following his directions while he walks me round in circles.” He wasn't even going to touch the hair thing.

Armin spread his hands, “I dunno! You asked. What did you expect?”

Jean slumped and sipped his drink. “I don't know really. As a double-oh I feel he should show me some respect.”

“Handlers have a hard job too you know, but no one makes movies about them. If we fuck up too badly, we die, but if they fuck up, they have to live with killing us.”

“Yeah, but I ain't gonna die,” Jean said, finishing his drink. “Also, that babe at the end of the bar looks like she wants to eat you alive.”

Armin sighed and hid behind his hair. “I've had three honeypot missions in the last fortnight. I really don't think think I could face any more sex right now.”

“If only we all had your problems,” Jean muttered, and considered stabbing him with a toothpick.

~~~

Jean thought he might actually die this time.

“Cut the red one,” Eren said into his ear.

“There _isn't_ a red one,” Jean said through his teeth, once again making a fruitless search through the beeping box in front of him.

“There has to be,” Eren said, his voice calmer and clearer than normal, indicating how very not calm he probably was under the surface.

“If there isn't a red one, what one do I cut?”

“It's not. That's not how it works,” Eren said, his voice tinged with desperation.

When the handler can no longer help, it is up to the agent.

“I'll pick one,” Jean said.

“Look just get out-”

“Civilians, remember? If I set it off now at least then-”

Snip-

The beeping stopped.

Jean exhaled and pressed his hand to his hammering heart.

“Fucking hell, double-oh three,” Eren said weakly. “Don't do that to me.”

Jean was still shaky when they debriefed and it was probably why it was this particular straw that broke the camel's back.

“It's. Fucking. Orange.” Jean was too angry to yell. He hissed instead, his teeth clenched hard enough to hurt. He'd faced his own death today because his _fucking_ handler was _fucking_ colorblind.

“It's close enough to red,” Eren shrugged.

“No, no it isn't. I thought I was going to die because you got it wrong.”

“Okay, it's a lightish red, but it's still red. And you worked it out; you cut the right one in the end anyway.”

“I was guessing.”

“If you're other options are green and yellow and blue and shit, why wouldn't you pick the orange one?”

“Because it's not red!” Jean shouted. “You said red. It was not red. You fucked up.”

“I was right! I was right as it was possible to get. I didn't make the fucking bomb; I don't think terrorists are handed a standardised colour chart when they attend bomb making classes at Blow Shit Up University. And keep your voice down.”

It was after hours but MI6 never really slept. There was no one in the immediate vicinity but there was guaranteed to be someone on the same floor at least.

“Fuck you. I'll shout if I want.” He lowered his voice anyway. “No one defuses a bomb with 'close enough to red.'”

“You did.”

“You are not pinning this on me,” Jean said.

“I was complimenting you, you wanker!” Eren was getting louder now too.

“Well you've got a pretty funny way of going about it. Just admit you fucked up and that it nearly killed me.”

“I will not, because I didn't.”

“You told me the wrong colour.”

Eren threw his hands up and spun his chair back to face his desk. “This is hopeless. You want to pick a fight, then let's fight. Otherwise, fuck off.”

“Okay,” Jean said, staring at the back of Eren's neck. Was this guy serious? He was a double-oh for fuck's sake; CQC was part of his daily routine, at the gym if not on the job. “Okay, let's fight.”

He didn't know why he didn't think of it earlier. It made so much sense. But he wouldn't have suggested it; too one-sided, but now that Eren had brought it up, he'd only have himself to blame.

Eren spun his chair round again and looked him up and down, thoughtfully. All the anger seemed to have drained out of him and he just looked focused.

“Now?” he asked.

“Sure,” Jean said, feeling his temper cool to match Eren's. He was, ultimately, a professional, even if Eren had knack for making him feel like an amateur, and he could get himself under control when he needed to.

Jean was glad Mikasa wasn't there to watch. He knew she worked out at the gym a lot; for a while he'd tried to time his sessions to match hers but it was hard to make small talk when you're gasping for breath, and he was constantly worried he smelled of sweat.

The only other person there was Levi, who was lifting improbably large numbers of kilos over his head in the corner. He ignored them, earbuds in his ears.

Jean went to fetch his gear from the locker and get changed, and when he returned, Eren, who clearly didn't use this gym, despite it coming with the job, had simply stripped out of most of his clothes and was warming up.

He might not have used this gym, but he obviously went somewhere. Under those cheap and boring office boy clothes was a broad, compact body, his torso as tanned as his face and hands. Jean eyed off the muscles rolling under his skin, and figured that explained why Eren seemed so confident.

The hair on his chest was fairly thick, lightening to a sprinkle over his ribs and thickening again above the waistband of his boxers. Yeah, he'd taken his trousers off too. He didn't look self-conscious at all, bouncing on the mat.

Levi continued to ignore them, his eyes fixed on the wall in front of him.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Eren asked thoughtfully.

That made Jean's mind up and he stepped out onto the mats.

“I'm not gonna try and kill you,” Jean said.

“Okay.”

Jean wasn't gonna toy with him. That was beneath him. As soon as Eren nodded he darted in, intending to knock him off his feet and get this over with.

Eren wasn't where Jean expected him to be. He sort of stepped out of the way, and when Jean moved to follow him his knee connected with Jean's stomach. Jean wheezed, but jabbed back quickly and Eren blocked with his forearms, his eyes sparkling green behind them and a little smile on his face.

What the hell?

Jean adjusted to something more defensive and Eren went after him, a flurry of blows and then backing off to use his feet again. Jean ducked, and lunged forward, clipping Eren's side, knocking him off-balance. He recovered fast. Jean overreached himself trying to follow up and Eren grabbed his arm and with no apparent effort flung him face-first into the mat.

Jean's first thought was to see if Levi had noticed his piss-poor display, but the senior agent was facing away from them, and wiping down the weights machine, his earbuds still in place.

Jean vaulted back onto his feet. Eren had backed off, arms loose at his sides, waiting for Jean to make the next move.

Maybe he would try and kill him. He was definitely done being nice.

They circled around each other for a little while, and then Jean dropped his shoulder, and Eren fell for the feint. Jean saw an exposed side and he jabbed Eren as hard as he could in the ribs. He probably wouldn't crack one, but if he did he didn't really care any more. He heard Eren gasp and saw him wince.

Jean allowed himself a small smile. Revenge is sweet.

Revenge is furious.

Eren suddenly cast all style aside and gave up defending himself at all, flinging himself at Jean with a ferocity that caught him almost entirely off-guard. Jean did all the right things, blocking and dodging and doing his best to take advantage of Eren's apparent loss of common sense.

But he didn't seem to feel it. Jean couldn't understand it; it _had_ to hurt, but Eren had apparently tapped into some reserves of adrenaline that gave him the ability to ignore pain. Reserves Jean didn't have. His hands and arms were aching, and he knew he'd have bruises, but if he could just get enough of a hit on Eren to put him down—get him on the mat—he could call that a win and call this off because it was fucking unnerving at his point.

He struck out with his left; textbook perfect, and he felt his fist connect but Eren just sort of leaned away from it, absorbed the blow, and Jean saw his fist coming right at his face.

Then he saw stars.

He sat down heavily on the mat and felt blood start to trickle down his nose and over his lips. He looked down and saw spots of red on his grey tank top.

Eren was looking at him with a hunted expression on his face. He didn't look triumphant at all.

“Wh-” Jean gingerly touched his nose, relieved that it wasn't broken. He wasn't sure what he wanted to say. He ended up saying the first thing that sounded coherent in his head. “Why aren't you an agent?”

Eren's eyes narrowed and his body language closed down.

“That's none of your business.” Without another word he turned and walked away. He picked up his clothes as he went, pulling on his trousers with his shirt wedged under his arm, kicking his shoes along until he had a hand free to scoop them up. The automatic doors of the gym hissed shut behind him, and Jean just stared after him, feeling the blood soak into the cotton stretched over his chest.

“Cold water.”

“Huh?” Jean looked up to see Levi standing a short distance away, towel around his neck.

“Cold water as soon as possible to wash the blood out. Use spit if it doesn't all come out, which is also disgusting but doesn't stain.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Levi nodded at him and strolled off in the direction of the showers. Jean waited until he was gone before hauling himself to his feet.

Things were different after that. When Jean felt like arguing he'd remember the look on Eren's face and shut his mouth instead, and somehow Eren seemed to get on his nerves less. They could be professional, he decided. That was all; no more and no less.

~~~

The last words Jean heard Eren speak were, “I'm not sure it's interference from the mountains,” and then his earpiece went dead.

And then someone clobbered him over the back of the head with what might have been a steel pipe and he rather thought the rest of him was dead too.

They were in a picturesque if humid corner of South America, looking for the connection between a drug cartel and a British peer that the analysts had assured them was there. The sheer distance from London meant Eren had come with him, and they set up a field HQ in a villa that was absolutely crawling with with a large and varied number of spiders. Jean had spent the first few hours practically fumigating the place while Eren had set up his computers.

Oh how he missed those simpler, spider-filled times now.

He came to tied to a chair, his head aching fiercely. They'd taken anything he might have been able to use as a weapon, including his belt and shoes. He had no idea what time it was, but sunlight was filtering in through a filthy window, enough to see the tiny, mostly empty room they'd left him in. Despite the pain he was in, Jean flexed his fingers, trying to work the circulation back and work out just how completely fucked he was.

Not entirely. The chair had solid metal legs and a wooden seat, and it was bolted to the floor, but the bolts were loose. It made Jean dizzy to look down at them, but if he could just...reach the bolt with his toes...

And there were spiders in here too, he noticed. Lovely.

His feet were cramping up once he managed to loosen the bolts enough to jolt the chair free. He hadn't given any thought to anything but his current predicament; he had to focus, but now he was making progress, he wondered how Eren was doing. It looked like they'd tracked their signal, even if it was unlikely they'd decoded it. All he could do was hope Eren worked that out and got out before they grabbed him too.

Jean had managed to free himself from the chair and was working on getting the window open when he heard gunshots. That was a good enough distraction for him; he picked up the chair and hurled it through the window, scrambling after it mindful of the sharp edges of broken glass.

He surprised a guy with a machete who was running the other way and Jean dropped him with one rather desperate blow and relieved him of his weapon. He could hear sounds of alarm and more shots, and he set off in the opposite direction, his head throbbing.

He could hear a vehicle approaching and Jean flattened himself against a wall, determined to try and take it for himself when a battered and bullet-holed white van came surging down between two buildings—this was some sort of compound—and Eren was hanging out of the driver's side window, aiming a pistol back the way he'd come.

Jean had been tensed to take a machete to the driver and he aborted the attack just in time as Eren jerked back into the van to deal with this new threat and then stomped on the brakes.

“You escaped!” Eren said, delighted.

“What are you doing here?” That old rage came bubbling back; he was on his way to escaping and Eren had charged in and now things were a thousand times more complicated-

“My job is to get you home in one piece,” Eren said, utterly determined.

Jean stared at him for a split second and then hurried around to the other side and swung himself in. “Give me the gun.”

Eren gave him a run-down of the compound's layout and the sort of resistance he could expect from the enemy that he'd seen so far. Eren himself had abandoned the villa just ahead of the cartel.

“I made a mess,” he said. “They won't be able to pick much out of the ruins.”

“We're still no closer to our goal,” Jean said, bracing himself on the door, and taking potshots at their pursuers, who were trying to cut them off.

“We know where their base is,” Eren pointed out. Jean looked at him. “What?”

“You still got the snout?”

“Yeah, I wasn't about to leave it behind. Q would skin me alive.”

“We can set it up right here. Do unto them what they did unto us only we'll be able to decrypt their signals, or rather, Q will.”

“People are shooting at us,” Eren said, wincing as the van bounced over uneven ground. “And it takes fifteen minutes to set up.”

“Let me take the wheel,” Jean said, ignoring the constant pounding in his head. “I'll distract 'em then swing back and pick you up again.”

“That's nuts,” Eren said, picking up his bag without further argument. “Drop me off over there. And don't be late on the way back.”

Two hours later, Jean had washed the blood out of his hair with bottled water and, posing as lost backpackers, they’d managed to hitch a ride somewhere. They weren't sure if the driver of the rickety truck was going to or from the town he'd mentioned, but he had to be going somewhere, and they sat in the back on hessian sacks and watched the sun go down behind them.

Jean nursed his wounds and thought of nothing but hot showers and painkillers and somewhere soft and safe to sleep. He couldn't let himself drift off, no matter how much he wanted to.

“I failed the psych tests,” Eren said quietly. It was the first thing he'd said for nearly an hour.

Jean looked at him, sitting across from him. The setting sun had painted his skin orange, and picked out gold highlights in his hair, but his eyes were almost glowing green. Jean thought he looked almost otherworldly. He wasn’t looking at Jean however, instead directing his gaze at the floor between them.

“It's why I'm not an agent,” he explained. “'Reckless lack of regard for my own life,'” he quoted. “Crazy suicidal bastard, one of my instructors once said. He meant it as a compliment, but the psychs didn’t.” He took a deep breath, “But, once I'd been head-hunted I didn't want to go back to civilian work.”

Jean looked at him silently, watching him play with one of the straps on his bag.

“Do you want to start again?” he asked.

“Huh?” Eren met his gaze.

Jean held out his hand. Eren smiled, and shook it.

“Bygones,” Jean said.

“Friends,” Eren said. “Get some sleep if you can. I'll keep a lookout.”

Jean smiled and let his eyes drift closed.

Jean started looking forward to Mondays again. When he ran into Mikasa he found himself speaking easily about his replacement when she asked him how he was getting on. It was a pleasant conversation, and when it was over Jean realised he didn’t feel like beating himself up over not asking her out.

Maybe he’d managed to get over something.

Jean invited Eren out after work to see if they could pick up some girls one evening soon after that, but Eren had shrugged in an apologetic manner and said he preferred guys.

“Oh. Alright then. Why not just drinks? We could see if double-oh six is free. He hasn’t been interested in girls lately either.”

“All those honeypot missions, right?” Eren laughed. “I can see why he gets them though. He’s pretty cute.”

“If you say so.”

“Aw,” Eren patted him on the shoulder. “You’re cute too.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

“Yeah, but you wanted it.” Eren winked at him.

Jean didn’t feel it would be a good idea to argue. Far easier to just go out and drink.

~~~

“What does this mean?” Jean asked, looking at the data scrolling down the screen.

Eren didn’t answer for a couple of shocked seconds. “It means our transmissions are compromised. Shit. We need to get out. Meet me at the butcher’s shop,” Eren said, before cutting the feed. Jean could already hear booted footsteps down the hallway. He drew his gun.

Later, slightly bloodied and buzzing with adrenaline, he hurried down Prague’s icy streets towards the meeting point indicated by the codeword Eren had used. Jean didn’t know who had busted their communications wide open, but they had a lot of friends who were very angry that they’d been found out.

He and Eren had to get out as a first priority and wait for further orders. Eren would have raised the alarm back at HQ but until Q gave them a new, secure system, they were on their own until they made an extraction point.

Jean was half a block from the rendezvous point when he heard the explosion. Around him the crowd screamed and ducked for cover and Jean broke into a run.

How did they know? Just how much had they been compromised? Jean approached the store front in question, greasy black smoke billowing from the shattered windows. He ducked as a couple members of the private army he’d been playing tag with all the way here spotted him and fired a volley of shots. There was no sign of Eren.

Jean dropped them. Two headshots. He was not in the mood to leave witnesses. He ducked into the store, his feet crunching on broken glass and bits of display cabinets. It was an antiques shop, despite the code name, and it had been closed at the time.

“Eren!” he hissed.

“Hey,” a familiar voice said weakly. Jean followed a disconcerting trail of fresh blood around behind the cash register, and found Eren sitting with his back to the solid wood counter, bloodied hands held to his stomach. “See?” he said with a smile. “I stayed put. Not a suicidal bastard this time.”

“Are you shot?” Jean asked, snatching a glance at the street before kneeling down to examine him.

“Nah I think it’s glass. Shoulda picked a pillow shop.”

“Can you move?”

“Not really.”

Jean told him to stay put anyway, uselessly, as he scouted for another way out. He could hear sirens, but their enemy was not above wearing uniforms and waiting for emergency services would be a bad idea. He returned to Eren.

“There’s a back way. I’m carrying you. Don’t argue!” he forestalled him. “This is gonna hurt, sorry.”

Somehow, Eren remained conscious as Jean hauled him up and staggered back into the rooms behind the shop. Eren was heavy, and Jean tried not to jolt him too much. Footsteps. Again.

Jean lowered him to the floor.

“I will take care of this,” he told him, drawing his gun. “I will come back,” he promised.

Eren gave him a weak smile.

What felt like endless setbacks later, Jean stole a car and they made for the emergency pickup point, Eren huddled in his coat lying flat in the back of the Citroen. Jean parked in what he hoped was an inconspicuous spot by the field in question, and got out and opened the back door to check on him.

He was still alive, and more surprisingly, still awake. He blinked up at Jean.

“We’re here,” Jean said. “We just have to wait for them to get us. I think I managed to shake our tail.”

“You are great,” Eren said softly, fervently.

Jean felt his entire face heat up. “That’s—um.”

He was somewhere between ‘that’s very kind of you’ and ‘you’re welcome’ and ‘are you taking the piss?’ when Eren leaned up and kissed him, gently, briefly on the lips before huddling back down into his coats.

“Hey,” Jean said, frowning. “That wasn’t a ‘goodbye, I’m dying’ thing, was it?”

“It was a ‘you’re cute when you’re blushing’ thing,” Eren mumbled. “And a ‘you wouldn’t hit an injured man’ thing, I guess.”

Jean was saved from having to answer that by Eren rather belatedly passing out.

They gave him back Mikasa; they were both very motivated to get the people behind this once and for all and Jean jetted all around Europe hunting them down. It explained why the snout they’d planted in South America had only yielded the bare minimum of useful information; they’d known it was there all along.

Two days later he got a badly-spelled text from Eren indicating he’d survived his surgery, even if he hadn’t waited for the anaesthetic to wear off entirely before informing him. He’d be out of action for a few weeks at least while all the internal stitching in his abdomen did its job, and Jean was glad of it. He didn’t want Eren anywhere near these people.

And he needed time, in the spare moments he could snatch, to think about what he was going to say to him when he saw him again. He’d seen this movie; the sex would be mindblowing. Mikasa’s voice in his ear was a balm, and she kept him updated on Eren’s status, but it wasn’t the same. He even missed the crisps, which told him, finally, how entirely fucked he was and that he just had to accept it.

When he finally came home, Eren had been out of hospital for over a week.

Jean was given a pat on the back by M and some time off, and the first thing he did was ask Eren if he wanted any company while he was recuperating.

_pls save me dying of boredom_

Jean took that as a yes.

The next day he knocked on the door to Eren’s flat, pushing his hair into place as the sounds of space combat beyond the door ceased, and footsteps preceded it opening.

Eren was in sweatpants and a tshirt, and was two days away from officially having a beard. He smiled when he saw Jean and Jean found himself smiling back. He’d looked so pale and still on the helicopter, and Eren had sent him selfies since, but it wasn’t the same as seeing him for real.

“Um, get well soon,” Jean said, holding out the flowers he’d bought on the way. Nothing too obvious, no roses or anything, just a bunch that he thought looked cheerful.

Eren smirked at him but he accepted the bouquet with thanks, and stepped aside for Jean to enter.

“My mum visited yesterday,” he said, walking into the kitchen to find something to put the flowers in. “Left me a whole bunch of food so I don’t have to cook. I’ve been so bored though, I almost miss cooking. Tea?”

“Thanks.”

Jean sat at the kitchen table while Eren got down a couple of mugs.

“How are you feeling?”

“Okay. It’s fine as long as I don’t stretch too much, or lift anything heavy.” He scowled. “I’m gonna lose so much condition. No weights for six weeks at least they tell me.”

Eren’s kitchen was cheerful but not particularly neat, and Jean knew he could have afforded a place much like his own if he’d wanted it.

Eren talked about how he’d been and asked Jean about the mission. Jean admitted it was mostly a blur, and only a couple of things stood out clearly for him, and Eren understood.

“M patted me on the head, but he’s not going to have fun explaining this to the central committee.”

“That’s his problem,” Eren said. “I wonder what they’re going to do to His Lordship though. They haven’t arrested him; it would have been on the news.”

“Squeeze him first, I guess.” Jean frowned. “I hope they squeeze him hard.”

Silence fell.

“Hey do you want to see?” Eren asked.

“All right.”

Eren grinned and stood up before lifting up his shirt. He still had stitches in him and Jean winced as he took in all the healing wounds.

“Kind of patchy,” Jean said. They’d shaved around the areas they needed to bandage, and it gave Eren a slightly piebald appearance.

“Maybe I should have gotten it all waxed off instead,” Eren said cheerfully.

“Nah, you look better with it.”

Eren lowered his shirt again. “Hey, um, you’ve been really cool about all of this,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “So, like, I don’t want you to feel that you have to-”

“I’m not cool,” Jean said. “Not to you, I mean. You never thought I was cool and I hated it.” He addressed this information to a spot somewhere to the left of where Eren was actually standing. “But you said I was great, I mean, you were in a lot of pain so I wouldn’t hold you to it.”

“You’re great,” Eren said, without hesitating. “And you’re also straight.”

“I don’t know any more,” Jean said quietly.

Eren bit his lip. “Do you want to try it?” he asked.

“No strenuous activity, remember?” Jean said, hearing his own words distantly over his heart pounding.

“Exactly. It’s a good thing; means we’ll take it slow,” his eyes dipped down to Jean’s chest for a moment, and Jean found himself getting to his feet as he raised them again.

“Yeah,” he said, and tried it. He leaned down and kissed Eren and Eren tilted his head back and let him.

He was the hairiest person Jean had ever kissed, and he found himself not really minding, winding his arms around Eren’s shoulders, feeling Eren’s arms drape loosely around his waist, felt his chest flat and hard against his own.

“You need a shave,” Jean mumbled when they pulled apart. “You look like a hipster.”

“Mm, I’ll get to it one of these days.” He looked up at him, bright eyed and teasing and Jean realised he couldn’t quite believe Eren wanted him. For all his sharp suits and expensive haircuts, he imagined Eren wanting better, someone warmer to match how warm he was. “Want to come upstairs?” Eren asked.

Jean nodded, his mouth dry.

Eren shucked his shirt a bit gingerly and lay back on the bed, and rather hesitantly Jean took off his shoes and socks and shirt and joined him, trying not to jostle him.

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Eren said. “My insides are not about to start leaking out.”

“I know it’s just.” He laid a hand flat on Eren’s chest, above the scars, felt his heartbeat through his palm.

“Sorry,” Eren said.

“Why are you sorry?”

“I forgot we were taking things slow.” He reached up and pulled Jean down into a kiss, and they stopped talking.

Eventually Eren grabbed one of Jean’s hands, still lazily kissing him, and pushed his fingers down the front of his pants.

“Are you sure you're okay?”

“Oh my God,” Eren said, and of all things he laughed and then winced. “You think I haven’t had a wank in all this time?”

“Well I don’t know,” Jean said defensively, as Eren undid the button on his jeans. “I just thought I’d- oh fuck.”

He let his head loll forward as Eren reached into his pants and gave his cock a long, slow squeeze.

“Damn,” Eren said softly, his eyes wide and dark. “Looks like you’re the one who hasn’t been wanking.”

“I’ve been busy,” Jean said, panting, as Eren continued to fondle him, trailing his fingers over his cock, but not quite jerking him. Busy being not quite sure what he wanted to wank _to_ , as well as the more prosaic kind of busy, but he didn’t tell Eren that.

He realised Eren was teasing, and he shoved his hand down Eren’s pants to return the favour. Eren’s breath stuttered slightly, and that must have been what he was waiting for because he gripped Jean more firmly, and started moving his hand in earnest. Jean sought his mouth with his own and they swallowed the sounds the other made until they were moving in synch, Eren with his free hand grasping the back of Jean’s neck.

It wasn’t mindblowing. It was a handjob by someone he was, in the back of his mind, constantly worried about hurting and he was unable to entirely relax because of it, but the ending was the same for both of them. Eren’s teeth scraped across his lip one last time before he flopped back onto the pillow, panting in to the space between them.

“I need to mend quickly,” Eren said, licking his lips.

“Why?” Jean asked.

Eren showed a lot of teeth as he grinned and indicated Jean in general, even if he was staring at the head of his cock still poking out from the waistband of his underwear, the way Eren had left it.

“I have a lot to look forward to.”

Jean smiled, flattered the way Eren could always flatter him, and said, “So do I.”


End file.
